The Fix

For those people who doubted whether the Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's (R) resignation decision yesterday was freighted with 2012 presidential implications, we present two pieces of evidence.

First, Palin released a statement on her Facebook page today that not only castigated the media for how they covered her announcement ("How sad that Washington and the media will never understand; it's about country," she wrote) but only sounded a distinctly presidential note.

Said Palin:

I am now looking ahead and how we can advance this country together with our values of less government intervention, greater energy independence, stronger national security, and much-needed fiscal restraint. I hope you will join me. Now is the time to rebuild and help our nation achieve greatness!

Those lines would fit almost perfectly into a stump speech in Iowa or New Hampshire -- two states you should expect to see Palin in sometime soon.

The second piece of evidence regarding Palin's national ambitions came later today when her private attorney -- Thomas Van Flein -- released a four-page statement seeking to quash rumors that the Alaska governor's decision to resign was motivated by ethics problems.

The document seeks to detail Palin's ties to the Wasilla Sports Complex and insists that neither she nor her husband, Todd, gained any sort of benefit from the building of the complex.

Van Flein also notes that those publishing "defamation" regarding the sports complex will be made to answer for those charges "in a court of law".

Palin is trying to do two things simultaneously with these twin announcements.

The Facebook message is on the positive track -- making clear she has plans and a vision for her future and the country's.

The letter from the lawyer has a different goal: to make clear to her detractors that she will not take what she takes to be false attacks laying down.

The broad message? Sarah Palin is here to stay -- whether you like it or not.

The Fix is spending the Fourth of July somewhere down in Texas -- what better place to celebrate the nation's independence than in this most independent of states! -- and thought we would honor the holiday with our top 10 reason to love the Lone Star State.

Have a great 4th!

10. Pickup trucks with deer antlers (fake, we think) on them.
9. Sweet tea.
8. LBJ
7. This bumper sticker
6. The weather (we kid).
5. Gigantic American flags at every car dealerships.
4. Lots of George Strait on the radio.
3. Brisket.
2. Rick Perry vs Kay Bailey Hutchison.
1. Panther football.

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is looking to build a national political operation in advance of 2012. (AP Photo/Chris Miller, File)

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin will resign her office later this month, according to several sources familiar with her decision, freeing her to build a national political team and travel the country in support of an expected 2012 presidential bid.

The first term governor is stepping down "so that she can take the fight for her issues elsewhere," according to a Palin aide.

Palin's decision comes amid polling that showed her losing altitude from the stratospheric heights to which she ascended following her election in 2006 but remained a strong favorite to win reelection.

Some Republican strategists expressed skepticism about Palin's decision.

"I'm not smart enough to see the strategy in this," said John Weaver, a senior party strategist. "Good point guards don't quit and walk off the court."

Ron Bonjean, a Republican consultant, said, "Governor Palin can now run for President
without playing the balancing act of keep Alaskan voters happy. While she has a core following, many Republicans are getting tired of the constant drama that surrounds her
family."

National Democrats also were quick to criticize the move.

"Her decision to abandon her post and the people of Alaska who elected her continues a pattern of bizarre behavior that more than anything else may explain the decision she made today," said Hari Sevugan, a spokesman for the Democratic National Committee.

Palin is the second potential 2012 candidate to decide against reelection. Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty chose not to run for a third term last month.

As we wrote recently, the logistics of running for president while the sitting governor of the Last Frontier is nearly impossible.

Palin spokeswoman Meg Stapleton rejected the idea the move was aimed at 2012. "She is not focused on 2012 -- she is focused on making a difference on the topics she finds so dear: energy independence [and] national security."

Watergate looms over the Nixon legacy. (AP Photo/Charlie Tasanadi)

Earlier this week we made the case for Richard Nixon's inclusion in the Fix Political Hall of Fame. Today we make the opposite argument.

Any conversation about Nixon and his legacy begins and ends -- necessarily -- with Watergate.

The break-ins at the Democratic National Committee headquarters, which ultimately led to the unraveling of Nixon's presidency and a permanent scar on the body politic, is symbolic of everything that was wrong about Tricky Dick: paranoia, an inability to contextualize the happenings in the political world around him, and a troubling willingness to bend and break the rules in service of his ambitions.

The war of words between conservative columnist Bill Kristol and Steve Schmidt, former campaign manager for John McCain's 2008 presidential bid, has ensnared another senior adviser, Mark Salter, who has come to Schmidt's defense after a recent appearance by Kristol on "Fox & Friends".

During that appearance, Kristol reiterated a battery of charges -- first made in an outstanding piece by Politico's Jonathan Martin -- including that Schmidt accused Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the vice presidential nominee, of suffering from postpartum depression, and that Schmidt had gone into the e-mail account of a McCain staffer to find out if the staffer was leaking information to the media.

"This was not a well-run campaign," said Kristol. "Schmidt did not behave very honorably."

Enter Salter who, upon watching Kristol's interview, e-mailed the Fix to rebut several of the charges in it.

Salter, who is widely seen as McCain's alter ego, insisted that Schmidt was the "primary defender" of Palin once she was named the vice presidential nominee and the "architect of the campaign's communication strategy" aimed at pushing back on attacks against her.

As for the e-mail kerfuffle, Salter acknowledged that a "keyword search" of the entire campaign staff's email was conducted after "damaging" and "unfair" leaks began to make their way into the media. (Salter rejected the idea that a single staffer was targeted.)

"The keyword search discovered an email from a staffer to a reporter that contained derogative and inaccurate information about another staffer, information which had made its way into the press," said Salter. "Appropriate disciplinary action was initiated against that staffer by senior management, which, again, included Steve Schmidt and others."

While this fight is largely academic -- after all, McCain lost and President Obama won -- it reveals the still-raw feelings left from a campaign that came up short.

It's hard to see either Kristol or Schmidt/Salter backing down in their respective charges so this story may play out for weeks to come as the two sides battle for control of the rough draft of the campaign's history.

A coalition of liberal interest groups is launching ads in 17 congressional districts over the July 4 weekend that thanks members of Congress for their vote in favor of President Obama's climate change legislation, a direct counter to a series of attacks on that same vote being sponsored by national Republicans.

Environmental Defense Fund, Americans United and Vote Vets are sponsoring the commercials, which will run in the following members' districts: Reps. Betsy Markey (Colo.), Allen Boyd (Fla.), Alan Grayson (Fla.), Suzanne Kosmas (Fla.), Baron Hill (Ind), Debbie Halvorson (Ill.), Ben Chandler (Ky.), Frank Kratovil (Md.), Gary Peters (Mich.), Mark Schauer (Mich.), Paul Hodes (N.H.), Dan Maffei (N.Y.), Mary Jo Kilroy (Ohio), Zack Space (Ohio), Tom Perriello (Va.), Gabrielle Giffords (Ariz.) and Steve Kagen (Wis.).

Here's a sample of the ads running in the districts above:

The release of these ads is evidence that the Democratic third party groups have grown increasingly well organized since President Obama took office roughly six months ago. The ability to funnel money to these groups and organize a coordinated message is a reflection of the stepped up coordination efforts being led by a handful of longtime Washington hands including Democratic consultant Erik Smith, who is with the group Common Purpose Project.

That's the number of days of the Fix July 4 vacation that starts today. (Ok, so it might not be the most important number in politics but it is sort of important to Fixistas, right?)

We still have a few posts up our sleeves -- the case against Richard Nixon's inclusion in the Fix Political Hall of Fame will come tomorrow, for example -- but, by and large, we will be off the grid, as the kids say.

That means no Line tomorrow (will you survive?) and no Morning Fix tomorrow or Monday.

The Fix will be fully operational again on Tuesday. Have a great fourth of July and try not to "Sanford it."

Is a Sarah Palin comeback in the works? Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

After enduring months of derision within Republican circles for her role as the party's 2008 vice presidential nominee and her uneven performance as a national figure this year, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is experiencing something of a rebound among the D.C. chattering class in the 48 hours since the release of a very tough profile on her in Vanity Fair magazine.

In the wake of that piece -- a 9,800 word opus penned by Todd Purdum -- a number of operatives who worked closely with Palin during the 2008 campaign have reached out to the Fix to defend the governor.

"She's a fine person, with unique and unteachable political skills," said Mark Salter, a senior adviser to Sen. John McCain's (Ariz.) presidential bid who was deeply involved with the Palin pick. "I'm sure she has a future if she wants one."

Palin got a vote of confidence from Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele as well on Wednesday during an appearance on Fox & Friends.

"Sarah Palin will be a leader in this party," said Steele during an appearance Wednesday on "Morning Joe." "She has the ability to galvanize the base, and even folks outside the base. "And I think all the hindsight second guessing and back looking does nothing."

That sentiment -- boiled down to "enough is enough" -- seemed to be the prevalent opinion of Republicans in the aftermath of the Purdum piece, which contains a series of background quotes from former McCain-Palin operatives that suggest that the Alaska governor was fundamentally unfit for the job to which she aspired.

Jason Recher, who served as a senior adviser to Palin and her trip director for the general election and has remained supportive of the Alaska governor, told the Fix that he spent two and a half months traveling with Palin and "grew to like and respect her even more as did many of the folks on the plane." Reche added that the people attacking Palin should "stand up and prove them on the record or move on with their lives like Sarah Palin has."

To be sure, there are still plenty of Republicans involved in the 2008 campaign who roll their eyes when asked about Palin's readiness to be vice president or the possibility of her running in 2012 for the top job.

But, the glut of anti-Palin quotes and stories that have bounced about the Washington echo chamber for the better part of the last six months -- Is she coming to the congressional fundraising dinner? Why is she fighting with David Letterman? What is going on with her daughter -- seem to be having the cumulative effect of turning Palin into a sympathetic figure (at least at the moment) among the GOP operative class.

It's not uncommon for a series of negative stories -- no matter how much truth is contained therein -- to have a boomerang effect on the person at the center of the controversy.

One needs only look back as far as the impeachment of former President Bill Clinton to see that phenomenon at work. The wall to wall coverage of Clinton had the effect -- over time -- of convincing people that Clinton had been beaten up enough and turning public opinion to his side.

That is what appears to be happening at the moment for Palin. The issue is whether she can take advantage of the softening of operatives' attitude toward her to re-introduce herself to the political set in Washington.

Although Palin will almost certainly run for president as an outsider to Washington (if she runs at all), she will need advocates inside the Beltway to help her raise money and keep a lid on the background sniping that is part and parcel of any presidential bid.

Palin may -- finally -- be understanding that reality.

Fred Malek, who served as a national finance committee chair for McCain's presidential bid, said that he recently hosted a foreign policy lunch at Palin's request in which she mixed with the likes of former secretary of defense Frank Carlucci and former deputy secretary of state Strobe Talbott.

"She has been vastly underestimated as a result of one or two interviews," said Malek of Palin. "I have spent a lot of time around her and can state unequivocally she is smart, perceptive, curious, and absolutely on top of issues like energy which are pivotal to her role as Alaska's Governor. "

The resignation hum is growing in South Carolina as Gov. Mark Sanford tries to weather the storm of his own making. AP Photo by Steve Helber

That's the number of Republican state legislators in South Carolina who have gone on the record to call for Gov. Mark Sanford to step aside in the wake of his disappearance and a series of admissions of dalliances outside of his marriage.

In addition to the 19 members of the state legislature calling for his ouster, six newspapers -- the Greenville News, the Rock Hill Herald, the Aiken Standard, the Spartanburg Herald-Journal, the Orangeburg Times and Democrat and the Charlotte Observer -- have also opined that Sanford's time leading the state is up.

Even Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C) seems to have turned the corner on Sanford, telling Fox & Friends this morning that "a lot of us are talking to him behind the scenes in hopes that he'll make the right decision about what needs to be done."

What all of the above means is that critical mass is rapidly being reached for a Sanford resignation.

As we wrote yesterday, Sanford almost certainly would have survived until the end of his term had he not granted an "emotional" (kiss of political death) interview with the Associated Press.

What Sanford did in that interview was turn the debate from one that was beginning to center on Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer's readiness for the office -- a topic explored brilliantly by Phil "Bring the Ruckus" Rucker in today's Post -- back into a conversation about how a man who had misled his family and the people of South Carolina multiple times could remain in office.

Sanford's interview with the AP amounted to a political kamikaze mission that seems to suggest that the operative question now is not if he will resign but when he will resign.

Politics is amazing, ain't it?

The latest installment of Mouthpiece Theater -- a day late due to Post digital video problems but NEVER a dollar short -- for your viewing pleasure.

Bananas